A REPLY.
A lecture entitled, “Woman’s Sphere, Woman’s Work and Woman Suffrage Discussed,” was delivered at the Central Presbyterian church, Des Moines, on the evening of December 25th, 1870, by the Rev. T. O. Rice. The address was published in the Des Moines Register of January 1st, 1871, and Mrs. Bloomer replied to it through the columns of the same paper January 21st, 1871, as follows:
Editor of the Register: A friend has placed in my hand a copy of The Register of January 1, containing a sermon by the Rev. T. O. Rice on ‘Woman’s sphere, woman’s work, woman suffrage,’ etc.
After carefully reading this sermon, I find nothing new or original in it. It is but a rehash of what has before been served up to us by the Reverends Todd, Bushnell, Fulton and others, who are alarmed lest woman should get the start of the Creator and overleap the bounds He has set to her sphere. It throws no new light on the vexed question of woman suffrage, brings to view no passages of Scripture hitherto hidden from our sight, and gives no arguments which have not already been met and refuted again and again. In much that he says the advocates of woman suffrage fully agree with him. A mother’s first duty is at home with her children, and nothing can excuse her for neglect of those entrusted to her care. Home is the happiest spot on earth when it is a true home—a home where love and harmony abide, where each regards the rights, the feelings, the interest, the happiness of the other, where ruling and obeying are unknown, where two heads are acknowledged better than one, and true confidence and esteem bind together the wedded pair. And I know of no happier homes, no better trained and better cared for children, than among the prominent advocates of woman suffrage. Whatever may be thought to the contrary, Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a model housekeeper, wife and mother; and nowhere can greater sticklers be found for the full discharge of all wifely duties than those who are pleading for woman’s enfranchisement. So far, then, as relates to home and children your divine has given us nothing but what we can subscribe to, and what we have preached for a score of years, at least, before he awakened to the necessity of giving the women of his congregation a sermon on their domestic duties. If they were ignorant on those matters, his words have not come to them an hour too soon.
After quoting familiar passages from both the Old and New Testament referring to woman, your divine opens by saying: ‘The general drift of these passages is obvious. Woman was designed to be a helpmeet for man.’ To this we have nothing to object. We, too, say that God made woman a helpmeet for man, finding it not good for him to be alone. But God said nothing of her being inferior, or subordinate, when he brought her to Adam—nothing of her being intended to fill an inferior position or discharge particular or inferior duties. She was made a helpmeet for man, not his subject and servant, but his assistant, companion and counselor. Not a helper in any particular sphere or duty, but in all the varied relations of life. Not to be always the frail, clinging, dependent vine, which falls helpless with the oak when it is riven by the thunderbolt, but to take the place, if need be, of the sturdy oak at her side when so riven, and bear upon her shoulders all the burdens which as true helpmeet and companion fall to her lot. Not to be an idle drone in the hive, but a sharer with him in all his head and his hands find to do. Not a helpmeet in the domestic relation merely, but also in the government of the earth and in the councils of the nation. It was not to him but to them that God gave power and dominion over the whole earth.
He next goes on to show why woman was to occupy a subordinate position, and of all the arguments brought forward by our opponents I never read a more weak and flimsy one than this. Because Adam was first formed and then Eve, she was therefore to be subordinate. But where is the proof of this? Do we find in all nature that the things last formed were inferior and subordinate to those first created? Again, that ‘Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.’ Now, will the reverend gentleman tell us which he deems the greater sin, to commit a wrong after being misled and deceived by promises of great good to follow, or to commit the same wrong without such promises or deception, and with the eyes wide open to the wrong? In any court of the present day, the extenuating circumstances would be considered and the former held the less guilty of the two.
How any unprejudiced and unbiased mind can read the original account of the creation and fall, and gather therefrom that the woman committed the greater sin, I cannot understand. When Eve was first asked to eat of the forbidden fruit she refused, and it was only after her scruples were overcome by promises of great knowledge that she gave way to sin. But how was it with Adam, who was with her? He took and ate what she had offered him without any scruples of conscience, or promises on her part of great things to follow—certainly showing no superiority of goodness, or intellect, or strength of character fitting him for the headship. The command not to eat of the Tree of Life was given to him before her creation, and he was doubly bound to keep it; yet he not only permitted her to partake of the fruit without remonstrating against it, and warning her of the wrong, but ate of it himself without objection or hesitation. And then, when inquired of by God concerning what he had done, instead of standing up like an honorable man and confessing the wrong he weakly tried to shield himself by throwing the blame on the woman. As the account stands, he showed the greater ‘feebleness of resistance, and evinced a pliancy of character, and a readiness to yield to temptation,’ that cannot justly be charged to the woman. As the account stands, man has more to blush for than to boast of.
While we are willing to accept this original account of the creation and fall, we are not willing that men should add tenfold to woman’s share of sin, and put a construction upon the whole matter that we believe was never intended by the Creator. Eve had no more to do with bringing sin into the world than had Adam, nor does the Creator charge any more upon her. The punishment inflicted upon them for their transgression was as heavy upon him as upon her. Her sorrows were to be multiplied, but so too was he to eat his bread in sorrow, and to earn it in the sweat of his face amid thorns and thistles. To her no injunction to labor was given, upon her no toil imposed, no ground cursed for her sake.
But now we come to the consideration of a passage which seems to bear more heavily upon woman, and which men have used as a warrant to humble and crush her through all the ages that have passed since our first parents were driven from the Garden of Eden: ‘Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’
This Mr. Rice regards as a command binding upon every woman for all time. Because Eve sinned, every woman must be ruled over by some man as long as the world stands. It is a little strange that the Creator did not tell us this. When talking to the serpent, He put enmity between his seed and the seed of the woman; but to the woman He said not a word of this law of subordination following her seed; and to Adam he gave no command, or even license, to rule over his wife.
Will the Rev. Rice please explain to us the meaning of a like passage in the chapter following? ‘The Lord said unto Cain, the desire of thy brother shall be unto thee, and thou shalt rule over him.’ Was this, too, a command for all time? Did God command Cain to rule over Abel? And if so, to whom does it now apply? The language is the same in both instances, except that in the latter case it was addressed directly to the party who was to rule, and in the former to the one who was to be ruled.
Clearly, the passage quoted should be regarded in the light of prophecy or prediction, and not of command. Substitute wilt for shalt, which I am told the original fully permits, and then all is clear. The prophecy has been fulfilled to the very letter. There are other passages that I think clearly show that the word shall has been wrongly translated. For instance, Cain says, ‘Whosoever findeth me shall slay me,’ taking the form of command rather than prediction.
Having done with the Old Testament, our reverend lecturer proceeds to give us what, in his opinion, was the idea and full meaning of the Apostle Paul in his rules and injunctions to the women of the churches he was addressing, and he wonders how there can be any opinion but his own on the subject. He makes the apostle go a long way beyond the Creator or the Saviour in his condemnation and subordination of women, and then thinks it strange that all do not take his version of the whole matter. Yet there are vast numbers of good, Christian men and women who cannot read with his eyes and who have presumed to differ from him. He quotes from some of the early Fathers on the subject, and proves that they entertained the same opinions and had the same fear of women getting into authority the Todds, Rices and Fultons of the present day suffer from. And the opinion of one party goes for as much as that of the other. The women of those early days, as all know, were ignorant and degraded and regarded as absolutely inferior to men. Custom had assigned them an inferior place and, instead of being treated as companions and equals, they were little better than servants and slaves. None but dissolute women, or women of loose character, sought for knowledge, and education was wholly denied to those who were virtuous. They were expected to remain at home in ignorant subjection to their masters. What wonder then if any, moved by the spirit, dared raise their voice in the presence of men they were instantly silenced, and told that it was not permitted them to speak? The early Fathers, like St. Paul, but conformed to the customs and shared the prejudices of the day in which they lived, and under the circumstances no doubt their injunctions were entirely proper and right.
We have no account on record of these ancient clergy disgracing themselves over a woman speaking as did the Rev. John Chambers, and other reverends of his stamp—and as we suppose the Rev. Rice would have done had he been there—a few years ago at the World’s Temperance Convention, in New York, when by their violent stamping, shouting, scolding and other uproarious conduct they succeeded in drowning the voice and driving from the stand a lovely, refined and highly educated Christian woman whom the president had invited to the platform. They carried their ends at that time; but that did not awe all women back into silence, or do themselves or the church any good. So all the warnings, and quotations from St. Paul, by all the reverends since his day, have not succeeded in keeping women in that state of ignorance and subjection they occupied two thousand years ago. The world moves, and it is God’s will that women move with it. He is no respecter of persons, but regards His people as all one in Christ Jesus.
But what have we next? After putting women down as low as possible our divine throws them a sop by telling them, if they will not usurp authority over men in the pulpit they may speak, and pray, and teach in Sunday schools, and in conference and covenant meeting. And where, pray, does he get his authority for this? Not in the Bible, surely. Paul says, ‘I suffer not a woman to teach.’ Teach what? The scriptures—the gospel, to be sure. This is direct and explicit. How can she teach the gospel in the Sunday school and elsewhere, without violation of St. Paul’s law? ‘Let women keep silence in the church,’ says the apostle. Then how can they talk, and pray, and teach in the conference meeting, the covenant meeting and other kindred places? St. Paul gives them no such liberty. Plainly your divine is willing the women of his church should do almost anything, so they do not interfere with his place, or usurp authority over him.
Poor me next comes in for a severe castigation from your reverend lawgiver because I dared say that, while I supposed St. Paul’s injunctions to women were right and proper at the time and under the circumstances of their utterance, I did not believe they were the rule for the educated Christian women of this enlightened day and age, the circumstances surrounding them having greatly changed since the introduction of Christianity. That I believed women were no more bound by the laws and customs of that time than men were bound to observe all the laws and customs of the same period; and further, that the church, by its practice, teaches the same thing, to a great extent. And, still further, that the words of St. Paul had nothing to do with woman’s political rights. The reverend gentleman puts words in my mouth I never uttered, thoughts in my head that I never conceived, places me in a position I never occupied and then, having attributed all manner of bad things to me, wipes me out with a sweep of his pen. Well, I do not feel a bit bad over all this. I have the consolation of knowing that I am in good company, and cannot be so easily annihilated as he supposed. There are scores of divines as able, as learned, as eloquent and as orthodox as T. O. Rice, of Des Moines, who take the same view of the matter as I do, and any number of good Christian people who subscribe to the same doctrine. I ‘have no painful solicitude as to which side will ultimately triumph.’ I am no more ‘squarely and openly at variance with God’s Word’ than is our reverend lecturer, who has set himself up as God’s oracle, and hopes to intimidate all women, and strengthen the rule of all men to whom the sound of his voice may come.
I do not question his right to think as he pleases, and lecture women on proprieties and improprieties; but I must say, I consider women quite as capable of judging for themselves what is proper and what is improper for them to do as any man can be; and I think if our reverends would turn their attention to their own sex, search out passages and rules of conduct applicable to them, and lecture them on their duty to their families and society, they would be much better employed than in trying to subordinate women.
God has implanted in woman’s nature an instinctive knowledge of what is proper and what improper for her to do, and it needs no laws of man to teach the one or compel the other.
Our lecturer assumes that ‘God did not design that woman’s sphere and woman’s work should be identical with that of man, but distinct and subordinate.’ That ‘woman is happiest in subordination, as well as more attractive,’ etc. This is, of course, only a picture of his imagination—only an expression of his own feelings and wishes. He can find no warrant for it in the Bible; for, as we have shown, God did not assign her to any particular sphere or work, but made her an helpmeet to stand side by side and walk hand in hand with man through the journey of life.
‘When aspiring, insubordinate, overtopping and turbulent woman loses all the attraction and fascination of her sex.’ Very true! and so do men of the same character lose all that commands our love and respect, and there are many more of the latter than of the former class! I know no such woman, but if there are any, every advocate of woman’s enfranchisement will do all they can to prevent her ever becoming so ‘restless, troubled, muddy, and bereft of beauty.’ So far as she has been admitted to the society of men they have not yet made her that terrible being they fear and dread. She has not proved herself coarse, vulgar, turbulent and corrupting in any society to which she has been admitted; and we would bid the reverend calm his excited mind, and remember that God made her woman, and under no change that has come to her has she proved untrue to the nature He implanted within her. So let him trust that the good God who is leading her forward into broader fields of usefulness will take care that she goes not beyond, in any respect, the limit He has fixed to her sphere.
Having settled the question that the sexes are to move in spheres distinct from each other to his own satisfaction, and having dismissed the apostle from the witness stand, we are told what, in the judgment of the speaker, is the proper and appropriate sphere of woman. In much of what follows we agree with him; but not altogether. ‘By analyzing any persons,’ men or women, ‘physically, mentally and morally, we can ascertain what station they are fitted to fill—what work they are fitted to do.’ And whatever either man or woman has capacity for doing, that is right and proper in and of itself; that thing it is right and proper for both, or either of them, to do. If God has given them a talent, He has along with it given them a right to its use, whether it be in the direction of the home, the workshop, the public assembly, or the Legislative Hall.
And if woman has hitherto neglected to improve all her God-given talents, it is because men have only permitted her to get glimpses of the world ‘from the little elevation in her own garden,’ where they have fenced her in. But let them invite her to the ‘loftier eminence’ where they stand, with the world for her sphere, as it was at the beginning, and then they can better judge of the qualities of her mind, and her capacity to fill any station.
In talking of man’s strength of body and mind fitting him for certain places, and woman’s weakness consigning her to other places, he forgets that intellectually, at least, a great many women are stronger than a great many men, and therefore better fitted for places where brains, instead of muscle, are needed. It is no more true that every woman was made to be a cook and a washer of dishes and clothes, than that every man was made to be a wood sawyer and a ditch digger. While some are content, in either case, to fill those stations, others are not content, and never will be, and will aspire to something better and higher. To what place the weak little men are to be consigned our speaker fails to tell us.
The home picture in the sermon is all very beautiful. Would that all homes were a realization of the picture! Woman is told great things of her duties, her influence, her glories and her responsibilities, but not a word have we of man’s duty to the home, the wife, the children. Woman is told that it is hers to make her children great and good, as though they were like a blank sheet of white paper and would take any impress she chose to give; when, in fact, they are stamped before they see the light of the world with the gross and vicious natures of their tobacco-chewing and wine-bibbing fathers, as well as with the weaknesses of the mothers, and it is often impossible for the best of mothers to so train their children that they may safely pass the pitfalls that men have everywhere placed to lead them into temptation and destruction. We protest against the mothers being held alone responsible for the children, so long as fathers wholly neglect their duties and set such examples and such temptations before their children as to corrupt their young lives and destroy the good influence the mother might otherwise exert. Not till mothers have a voice in saying what influences and temptations shall surround their children when they go beyond the nursery walls, can they justly be held accountable to society or to God for their conduct. The woman who only takes a narrow view of life from the little eminence in her garden can never give to the world very good or very great children. She must be permitted to take in a wider range from a loftier eminence, before she can form those great characters and inscribe upon the immortal mind the great things that are expected and demanded of her. If we would have great men, we must first have great women. If we would have noble men, we must first have noble mothers. A woman whose whole thought is occupied in cooking a good dinner and mending old clothes—or (a little more refined) whose thoughts center on a beautiful dress, elegant embroidery, the fashionable party, the latest novel or the latest fashion—can never give to the world a Bacon or a Newton, a Howard or a Wesley, a Buonaparte or a Washington. Our preacher lays a heavy responsibility on woman, but all his talk about her influence, her duty and her subordination is not going to give her that wisdom, strength and moral material out of which to properly construct the fabric of the Church and the Commonwealth.
We would by no means undervalue the home, or the mother’s duty and influence; but we would ennoble and purify the one, and enlarge the duties and extend the influence and power of the other. Our divine thinks that, because woman is mother, daughter, sister and wife, it is enough for her and she should desire nothing more. Man is father, husband, son and brother, and why is he not therefore content? What can he desire or ask for more? Let men realize that they, too, have duties to the home beyond merely supplying the money to satisfy the physical wants of the family; let them throw down the wall they have built up around the woman’s garden and invite her to survey with them the wider range from the loftier eminence, and many homes would be made glad that are now anything but Gardens of Eden, and many women would be strengthened for the full and faithful discharge of all their duties.
‘Woman is not a mechanic.’ Yes, she is. All men are not mechanics. I know women who have more mechanical genius than their husbands; and I believe there are few of the mechanical arts that women could not master and perform successfully, if custom permitted and necessity required. They are naturally ingenious, and fashion many things as difficult to learn as to saw a board or drive a nail, to make a watch or a shoe, a saddle or a harness. My next-door neighbor is a natural mechanic, and has manufactured various articles in wood, from a foot to two feet in size, such as tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, frames, brackets, etc., with only a penknife and a bit of sandpaper for tools, which are perfect specimens of workmanship, and are so acknowledged by first-class cabinetmakers. She has taken premiums on these articles for the best woodcutting and carving at our agricultural fairs. This work has only been done for pastime, and the lady is equally ingenious with the needle, as well as a good housekeeper, wife and mother. There are many women engaged in various kinds of mechanism.
There are many inventions by women; but how many have been patented, can only be known by inquiry at the Patent Office. And even then it would be difficult to ascertain facts, since the patent is generally obtained in the name of the husband. I have a lady friend who invented patterns for parlor stoves. Her husband had them patented in his own name, and entered upon the manufacture and sale of them.
The ‘natural difference in the turn of mind in the sexes’ is not so great as is supposed. The seeming difference is more owing to education and custom, than to nature. It is a very common thing to hear a young girl wish she was a boy, or a man, that she might be free to do what she lists in this world of work—to make use of the powers which she feels burning within her. The girl envies the boy his freedom and his privileges. In ‘earliest childhood,’ if let alone, there is little difference between the boy and the girl. The girl likes to ride the horse and blow the trumpet, as well as the boy; and the boy loves a doll and a needle and thread, as well as the girl. It is not the child that selects, but the parent that selects for him. From the very first (the whip, the horse, the trumpet) the boy is taught that it is not right or manly for him to play with dolls, or girls; and the girl, that little girls must not play with boys, or with boys’ playthings, because it is not ladylike, and will make a tom-boy of her. And so education does what nature has not done, and was never intended to do.
‘Those who would curse our race have ever attempted, in imitation of the great progenitor, to poison all our fountains and wither and blast all our budding hopes by directing their artful attacks and deadly shafts against the breast of woman.’
Alas! this is but too true. Ever since Satan, who was a man, struck the first blow at her happiness, men have directed their deadly shafts against her, by first subjugating her to their will, and then using their power to ‘poison the fountain of her happiness and wither and blast her budding hopes.’ She has been made their sport and their victim, with no power to avert the evil, or protect herself, or those entrusted to her care, from their artful and brutal attacks.
But what have we here? After telling women that home is their sphere, and that God placed them in it, and they should not go beyond it, the reverend lecturer turns right about and supposes a case where a woman is called upon to devote her time, or her energies, to home duties and family cares, or of one who voluntarily chooses to do something else; and, strange as it may seem after all that has gone before, he says ‘she may follow a trade, teach, lecture, practise law and medicine, and fill a clerkship.’ This is good woman’s-rights doctrine! The bars are let down that separated the spheres, and woman is permitted to leave the ‘distinct and subordinate’ one allotted to her, and enter upon a sphere and work ‘identical with that of man.’ Here we can join hands with our divine, and be thankful that light has so far dawned upon him. And he farther ‘demands that all the sources of learning, all the avenues of business which they are competent to fill shall be thrown open to the whole sex, and that they shall be fairly and fully rewarded for all they do’! These good words go far to atone for all he has said before, and we will not ask why this change, or concession. Enough that he comes thus far upon our platform. But can he stop here? After giving her so wide a sphere, and educating her mind to the fullest extent, can he again put up the bar and say ‘thus far and no farther shalt thou go’? Indeed, no! God himself has in these latter days broken down the bounds that men had set to woman’s sphere, and they cannot, by opposition or Bible argument, remand her back into the state of silent subjection whence she came. The ministers of the church for years set themselves up against the anti-slavery cause, and proved conclusively, to themselves, from the Bible, that slavery was right and God-ordained; that the Africans were, and were to be, a subjugated race, and that to teach differently was in plain violation of the teachings of the Bible. They held themselves aloof from that cause, in the days of its weakness, at least, and cried out against those who were pleading for the emancipation of the slave. But God proved their mistake by setting that people free, and endowing them with all the rights of citizenship. So, too, the Bible is brought forward to prove the subordination of woman, and to show that because St. Paul told the ignorant women of his time that they must keep silent in the church the educated, intelligent women of these times must not only occupy the same position in the church and the family but must not aspire to the rights of citizenship. But the same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of woman, and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was at the beginning.
The divine uses the column and a half that remains of the space allotted to him to show why, in his opinion, women should not vote—after telling us there is nothing against their voting in the Bible, and omitting to tell us what the passages quoted at the head of his discourse have to do with politics or political rights. One of these reasons is that women will want to hold office; and in proof of this he tells us that the office of deaconess, which existed in the church till the middle of the fifth century, was abolished because the women ‘became troublesome aspirants after the prerogatives of office.’ It is ever thus. Men are willing women should be subordinate—do the drudgery in the church and elsewhere; but let them aspire to something higher and then, if there is no other way to silence them, abolish the office. Men want all the offices, and it is a crying shame for a woman to think of taking one from them, thus setting them all aquake with fear!
Men argue as though, if women had the right to vote, they would all abandon their homes and their babies, and stand at the polls from year’s end to year’s end and do nothing but vote. When the fact is men do not vote but twice a year; are detained from their business but a few minutes to deposit their ballots; and then go their way, none the worse for the vote. I regret that Rev. Rice thinks so badly of the advocates of woman’s cause. So far as I know them, his charges are unfair and sometimes untrue. A better personal acquaintance would disarm him of much of his prejudice. The women are all good sisters, wives and mothers, living in love and harmony with their husbands, to whom they are true helpmeets, and whom they have no thought of deserting. Not half of them ever expect to hold office—certainly not, unless the offices are greatly multiplied—nor to have any part in turning the world upside down. On the contrary they will continue to care for the babies, cook the dinners, and sew on the buttons the same as ever.
Another reason why woman should not vote is that he thinks ‘God has not fitted her for government, that He never made her to manage the affairs of state, that very few women would make good stateswomen,’ etc. And yet God did at the Creation give her an equal share in the government of the earth, and our divine imposes upon her all the government of the family! God called Deborah to manage the affairs of state, and approved of her management, never once telling her she was out of her sphere, or neglecting her domestic duties. And the queens of the Bible are nowhere reproved for being in authority and ruling over men. Many women have shown a fitness for government in all ages of the world. There are few able statesmen among men, and the world is suffering sadly for want of woman’s help and woman’s counsel in the affairs of state.
But I cannot ask you to allow me space to follow the reverend gentleman through all that follows on the question of woman suffrage. His arguments are very stale, and many of them absurd. I doubt not he is honest in his convictions; but all do not see with his eyes, or judge with his judgment. As able minds as his own among men take a different view of the matter, and believe that at the polls, as elsewhere, woman will have a refining moral influence upon men, and that she will herself be benefited and ennobled by the enlarged sphere of action.
I cannot better close than with the words of Bronson Alcott, at a recent ‘conversation’ in Chicago: ‘There is no friend of woman who does not believe that, if the ballot were extended to her, not one would ever vote for an impure man. To give woman the ballot would purify legislation, plant liberty and purity in our families, our churches, our institutions, our State.’
Amelia Bloomer.
Council Bluffs, Iowa.